Arthur Post

Thanks! Very interesting.

A little more research reveals that the luthier Hidalgo Moya worked in Leicester and was born in Missouri in 1867. (It appears he had a previous career inventing and developing typewriters!) I'd say it's probable that he was related to my grandmother's grandfather, but the fiddle in question is much too old to have been made by him. He was busy with typewriters and aviation experiments until around 1910. Has anyone heard of first-half of 19th century Mexican luthiers?

The plot thickens - Does anyone know anything about a violin maker named Hidalgo Moya, who died in 1927? This violin belonged to my grandmother, who was born in the USA in 1896. Her grandfather was Juan Jose Hidalgo Moya, born in Mexico in 1930. It looks like he lived in the state of Missouri, USA at least until 1880, and it appears he was a violinist. Any relation between these two "Hidalgo Moyas" is just conjecture at this point. Hidalgo Moya co-authored "Violin Tone and Violin Makers" (with Towry Piper, who edited writings for Hart) published in London by Chatto & Windus in 1916. Available for download here: https://www.ebooksread.com/dl2.shtml?id=167581&ext=pdf_external&f=violintoneviolin00moyaiala&a_id=68861 Tarisio and Bromptons list some Hidalgo Moya fiddles sold at auction: https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/browse-the-archive/makers/maker/?Maker_ID=1248 https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/price-history/?search_city=&search_last_name=&Maker_ID=1248&order=auction_month%3ADESC&unsold=1 https://www.bromptons.co/reference/makers/details/moya-hidalgo.html

Many thanks for that observation! Here are the photos of the linings and the lower blocks, as best as I could get them through the F-holes.

I hope I've understood what the fluting is. Do these photos suffice?

UPDATE - Thank you all for your valuable input. The quick "preliminary impression" from photos that Dmitry Gindin offers yielded the opinion that it isn't Italian. I also sent the photos posted here, plus photos of as much of the linings and blocks as could be captured on a cell phone camera through the F-holes to Geigenbau Benedek. They said they could rule out Hungarian origin. I think that means Austro-Hungarian. (Please let me know if anyone thinks that posting those photos here would help.) Next stop, probably dendro.

I'm not counting my chickens yet, but thanks for the encouragement @Spelman!

Thanks for the good idea @germain

Would any additional photos help? Or are you saying that the pegholes are no longer original, so nothing more can be gleaned from them?

Thank you all for your comments! I'm in Girona, outside of Barcelona. I would greatly appreciate any advice about where to have it looked at. I lived previously in Colorado and brought the fiddle to Robertson in Albuquerque. 4 or 5 years ago they said they sent photos to someone in London for dendro (I forgot the name but will try to get it.), but it didn't turn up any matches.

I'm new to this forum - hope I'm following the protocols correctly. This violin was purchased in New York around 1910 by my grandmother, who probably played it for only 10-15 years before stowing it away. The 'Ferdinandus Gagliano . . . 1760' label looks very old but fake. I've gotten an opinion that it may very well be late 18th - early 19th century Italian, but no clues as to its specific origin. Any information or ideas from people with trained eyes would be welcome. Thanks in advance for your attention.